I lied about the money

I need to get this off my chest. It’s been eating me up for years. I don’t even know why I’m writing it down for strangers to see, but maybe… maybe someone will understand, or maybe just the act of typing it out will make it real enough to start dealing with it. It’s about my grandma, Mary. She died about five years ago. She was… she was everything to me. My parents were… not great. My mom was always working, and my dad… well, he wasn’t around much even when he was there. Grandma Mary basically raised me. She picked me up from school, made me dinner, helped me with my homework, and tucked me in at night. She was the most selfless person I’ve ever known. She always put everyone else first, even when she didn’t have much herself.

When she got sick, it was like my whole world started to crumble. We knew it was coming, she had cancer, but knowing something is going to happen and actually living through it are two different things. I was in college then, trying to juggle classes and work and visiting her at the hospital. It was exhausting, physically and emotionally. But I wouldn’t have traded those moments with her for anything. We’d talk about everything and nothing. She’d tell me stories about her childhood, about my grandpa (who died before I was born), about all the things she wanted to do but never got the chance to. And I’d tell her about my classes, my friends, my dreams for the future. I tried to keep things light, but she always knew when I was hurting. She always knew what to say to make me feel better.

When she passed away, I was devastated. It felt like a piece of me had died with her. The funeral was… a blur. I remember seeing all her friends and family, all the people whose lives she had touched. And I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of guilt, like I hadn’t done enough for her. Like I hadn’t been there enough. Like I hadn’t told her how much I loved her enough.

After the funeral, there was the whole business of dealing with her estate. She didn’t have much, just a small house and a little bit of money in her bank account. But she had a will, and in it, she left everything to me. I was surprised, honestly. I thought she would have split it between all her grandkids, but she didn’t. She left it all to me. And that’s where things started to go wrong.

The money wasn’t a huge amount, maybe around $10,000. But for a broke college student, it felt like a fortune. I had student loans, bills to pay, and I was working a dead-end job that barely covered my expenses. The money could have made a real difference in my life. And it did, in a way. But not in the way it should have.

My aunt, Sarah, who is my mom’s sister, was helping me with the estate stuff. She’s always been… a little bit greedy, I guess is the best way to put it. Not in a malicious way, but she always seemed to be chasing after money and status. She knew about the money Grandma Mary left me, and she started hinting that I should share it with the rest of the family. She said that Grandma Mary would have wanted it that way, that it wasn’t fair for me to get all of it when everyone else was struggling too.

And… and I lied. I told her that there was less money than there actually was. I said that Grandma Mary had to spend a lot of it on medical bills before she died, and that there was only about $3,000 left. It was a stupid, selfish lie. But I was scared. I was scared that if I told her the truth, she would pressure me into giving most of it away. And I didn’t want to. I wanted to use it to pay off my loans and get my life back on track.

Sarah didn’t seem to believe me completely, but she didn’t push it. She just said that it was a shame there wasn’t more, and that I should use it wisely. And I did… sort of. I paid off some of my loans, but I also bought some things I didn’t really need. A new laptop, some new clothes, a weekend trip with my friends. I justified it to myself by saying that I deserved it, that I had been through so much. But deep down, I knew that I was wrong. I knew that I had lied, and that I had betrayed Grandma Mary’s trust.

The guilt has been eating at me ever since. Every time I think about Grandma Mary, I feel this sharp pain in my chest. I feel like I’ve let her down. I feel like I’m not the person she thought I was. I’ve tried to make amends in other ways. I’ve volunteered at the local soup kitchen, I’ve donated to charity, I’ve tried to be a better person. But nothing seems to make the guilt go away.

I’ve thought about telling Sarah the truth, but I’m afraid of what she’ll say. I’m afraid of what she’ll think of me. I’m afraid that she’ll tell the rest of the family, and that they’ll all hate me. But maybe… maybe it’s time to face the consequences of my actions. Maybe it’s time to finally tell the truth, even if it hurts. I don’t know what to do. I just… I needed to tell someone. I needed to get this off my chest. Even if it’s just to a bunch of strangers on the internet. Thanks for listening, I guess.